After almost nine months of inquiry and investigation, the Modesto Irrigation District (MID) is still unable (or unwilling) to determine whether or not MID Director Larry Byrd used MID surface water on out-of-district trees on the AB LaGrange Ranch, where he is a partner with his brother Tim Byrd and Tyler “Ty” Angle.

The out-of-district trees are in two separate almond orchards near the town of LaGrange in southeastern Stanislaus County. One, on a property also known as the “Rodoni” ranch, consists of just under 340 acres of in-district property. Another 96.7 acres are out-of-district. A second orchard, known locally as the “Rairden” property, features thirty acres in-district and 42 acres outside district boundaries.

Last July 8, former Oakdale Irrigation District Board Member Linda Santos suggested during a public meeting that Director Byrd was watering out-of-district trees with MID surface water, a clear violation of district rules. Subsequently, Todd Sill, AB LaGrange ranch manager from 2016 until 2023, claimed Byrd “seldom” used groundwater on the out-of-district trees. Byrd himself claimed that he irrigated the out-of-district trees with groundwater he pumped “almost daily” during hot weather.

After months of discussion and debate, the MID Board of Directors approved an investigation into Byrd’s alleged misuse of MID water last October. After ten weeks of investigation, 4Creeks Design and Construction firm determined Byrd could not have used groundwater on the out-of-district trees. Despite this conclusion, 4Creeks investigators said they could not determine whether Byrd used MID surface to irrigate the out-of-district trees. There were no other water sources available.

Local farmers say almond trees need three to four feet of water per acre. The general rule-of-thumb is three and a half feet. Larry Byrd has a total of one-hundred thirty-eight acres of out-of-district almonds — ninety-six on the Rodoni and forty-two on the Rairden. At a highly conservative estimate of three acre-feet per year, one-hundred thirty-eight acres of almonds would require four-hundred and fourteen acre-feet of water per year.

The current price for MID out-of-district water is two-hundred dollars per acre-foot. Two-hundred dollars times four-hundred and fourteen comes to eighty-two thousand and eight-hundred dollars ($82,800). Over a five-year period, that’s four-hundred fourteen thousand dollars ($414,000). Remember, these dollar amounts are based on a water use estimate on the very low end — actual usage averages were likely much higher.

MID’s inability to account for that much of our most valuable public resource is inexcusable. Over the course of the Byrd controversy, Byrd and others have implied that other farmers have applied MID surface water on out-of-district property by suggesting continued investigations would “open a can of worms.” If other farmers are indeed irrigating out-of-district properties with MID surface water, the loss to MID ratepayers of the district’s most precious resource could amount to millions of dollars per year.

The Modesto Irrigation District is a public utility charged with governing the use of a public resource. The State of California is the ultimate authority for public utilities within state boundaries. The failure of MID management to account for water use within district boundaries is a failure to govern and amounts to a gross disservice to MID ratepayers. It’s time for the State to step in and assure MID ratepayers the district’s most valuable asset is properly policed and paid for.

MID ratepayers have the right to the truth about where their water goes.

Richard Anderson left us two weeks ago today.

Several years ago, I was reporting on homelessness in Modesto when Richard Anderson asked whether I’d be willing to take him to a homeless camp. I told him they were pretty rough places. Richard said he was used to rough places, but I doubted him. He looked frail. He had been diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer several years prior and had had a lung removed.

At the time, there was a camp on south Ninth Street where I knew most of the residents. I figured it would be safe enough.

Richard showed up with a camera and tripod. He was wearing loose fitting sandals. I worried about him falling. We had to walk over railroad tracks and wickedly sharp stones to get into the camp. Richard looked unsteady.

I shouldn’t have worried. Richard’s body seemed to operate as a function of his will, which even gravity couldn’t bring down — at least not then. Richard teetered, but he didn’t fall.

Film was just one of many of Richard’s passions. He was intent on recording local history. He captured volumes. He filmed over 250 videos with a local focus. He was the driving force for the documentary films Homeless in Modesto I and II.

Richard was also a pathfinder, but not in the usual sense. Richard found paths for others. That was his great gift. He led us into the light he shone forward toward achieving humanity.

With a PhD in Plant Cell Biology, Richard’s command of science was broad and detailed; he was a practicing ecologist and one of earth’s most steadfast advocates. Richard’s wife, Lynn Hansen, pioneered science instruction at Modesto Junior College by becoming the school’s first female Professor of Science.

An accomplished poet, Lynn partnered with Richard to promote the arts, the learning, and the values that direct our ongoing mission for a better community. She continues his project of inspiration, ennobling us with her presence as Richard did, with his constant practice of virtue and benign sacrifice, so long and so strong.

Four years ago, we published Tom Portwood’s profile of Richard Anderson. We’ve brought it back below, in memoriam.

Dr. Richard Anderson’s Life Lessons in Citizenship

By Tom Portwood — One of the Valley’s great community leaders, Dr. Richard Anderson took an often-adventurous path in life prior to arriving as a Professor of Microbiology at Modesto Junior College in 1989. Along the way, he experienced things that helped to shape the dedicated and caring activist he is today.

Not surprisingly, he has always worked fiercely as an advocate for a wide array of worthy causes — from fighting for social justice in the Santa Barbara of the late sixties and early seventies to teaming with others on the Modesto Homeless Documentary Project — and continues to do so well into his retirement years.

Early on, Dr. Anderson learned the value of looking for lessons in every situation.

“I was born in Des Moines Iowa, in 1944, but we moved to California when I was four, so I am basically a Californian,” Dr. Anderson recently recounted.

“We went to a literalist Christian church. Attending that church has been a problem for me as well as a blessing. But I did learn good lessons from that experience — that we should love others as we love ourselves and that we have a responsibility to make this world a good place.”

From an early age, Richard was fascinated by science, and enrolled at the University of Southern California with the intent of becoming a medical missionary. Upon graduation, though, he was still searching for what he wanted to do with his life.

Staying on at USC for graduate studies, he,

“Analyzed the feeding habits of fish, Lanternfish, in particular. Every day these fish migrate 300 meters down into the dark because they have to escape predators, and at nighttime they all come up again and start feeding on the plankton that’s been growing during the day. By studying these fish I was able to earn a Master’s degree.”

His intensive postgraduate studies next took him to the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he pursued his Ph.D. by using an electron microscope to study how plants move sugars from leaf to root.

“But something else happened at UCSB in those years,” he pointed out. “The Revolutions of the Sixties were happening — the Environmental Revolution, the Black Revolution, the Brown Revolution, the Women’s Revolution, and the gay people were beginning to come out. It was an exciting time.”

It was during this time that Richard became more of a progressive, someone willing to stand up for social justice.

‘I completed my doctoral exams early in 1970,” Dr. Anderson continued. “But I had no job.  So I bought a restaurant for about $1,500. I learned another lesson — which is that running a small restaurant is really, really hard work, and takes up all your time seven days a week all day.”

In a sense, Richard had two separate restaurants.

“I had a gay coffee house which was open later at night. We served pie, ice cream, tea, and coffee. But we also had a restaurant open in the evenings, to serve food – brown rice with vegetables, and salad – you could get that for 99 cents. The specials were $1.10. The food was very simple, such as beef Stroganoff made with ground beef. I did that for a year. It was common for the food take to be all of $30 to $35 a night!”

The next turn in the career path took Dr. Anderson to La Mesa, California, where he taught full-time for a year at Grossmont College. Eventually, though, due to budget cuts and policy changes, he worked on a part-time basis for a few years before losing his position to a young woman.

“The school did the right thing,” he generously recalled.  “This was the era of the Women’s Revolution.  They needed to have youth, and they needed to have a woman!”

Undaunted by the loss of a job, and “excited by an opportunity to go to Belize with seven people to live there, and grow food,” he set out on his next great adventure — living off the land, far away from the United States and its consumer society.

“The atmosphere in Belize was completely relaxed,” he related. He loved the country and its people but found, “I learned that not only was I not strong enough to make it on my own, but I really learned an appreciation for water. If you don’t have water, you don’t have life. I owned a Mayan-dug well maybe a thousand feet away down a gentle slope on the property where I lived, so I’d go down there with a yoke and two buckets and trudge back up that hill with the water. So this notion of  turning on a tap for water and wasting it when we forget to turn it off – no, that experience made me into a water conservation fanatic. I learned many others lessons, too, including that I could not live in a non-technological society. I came back to the States to start up a new life.”

Landing back in California in 1980, Dr. Anderson studied for a time to become a nurse, pursuing an LVN degree at Columbia College, but eventually started teaching at the school since, with his Ph.D.,   “I could teach any biology class they wanted to assign to me.”

In the late 1980s, he returned to school to learn microbiology at UC Davis.

“That really enhanced my life, because now I could teach a broad range of subjects – microbiology, anatomy, physiology, and general biology. In 1989, I was hired at MJC, which was even better because I specialized in microbiology. I was able to make a film about the germ theory of disease on a sabbatical leave,” he mused. “In addition to getting the job, a couple of years later I married one of the biologists on the committee who had hired me – Lynn Hansen,” he added chuckling.  “That really changed everything for me!”

In the ensuing thirty years, Richard and his wife Lynn have traveled extensively, including to such far-flung destinations as the Galapagos Islands, the Antarctic, Tanzania, and Midway Island.

Following his retirement from MJC in 2009, Dr. Anderson redoubled his efforts in the community where he had taught and made a home with Ms. Hansen. This led to The Modesto Homeless Documentary Project.

“I spent most of my life in the Ivory Tower of academia so I felt the need to try to learn what’s going on outside,” he explained.

“There is such a homeless problem here. I hooked up with Frank Ploof, Leng Power, John Lucas, and Eric Caine, and we made a documentary on the homeless in Modesto up until 2018.” It’s at: https://youtu.be/PHauVTGXQsE

“It’s sort of a historical document because in the fall of 2018, the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals passed a ruling on the Boise case that says you cannot cite people for camping in public unless there is enough sheltering available in that community. There are no metropolitan communities that have enough sheltering, and so that ruling caused the big changes that we’ve seen in Modesto.  We are now making a new movie that updates our area’s responses to the issue over the last few years. What our area has done in response is really quite complex. I know we’re not doing enough. More people are being added to the ranks of the homeless every year by all these powerful economic forces. I also want to complete my other video, which is called Here and Now: Local Climate Change Impacts.”

Dr. Anderson contributes impressively in other ways as well. With his video equipment in hand, he’s documented a plethora of local events, including poetry readings, candidate forums, and political rallies and marches. He’s interviewed numerous religious leaders and scientists and documented their thoughts on video.

He’s been a member of the League of Women Voters for many years, and has long served as a volunteer for the Modesto Peace & Life Center.  Recently, he and Ms. Hansen have been helping a family from Syria get established here in Modesto.

“I’ve learned a lot about Modesto and the Valley since I’ve been here, and met many wonderful people,” he reflected when asked about the Valley.  “Yes, we have our problems. But this is a very kind group of people that I know and with whom I work. It’s a welcoming place, in a way. Of course, a lot of it is having met Lynn, and married her, and becoming integrated into the community. That has really opened my eyes to all kinds of wonderful people. I’m just trying to help build that community that we all want to live in.”

RIP Richard: So long and so strong.

One of the most glaring omissions from last year’s 4Creeks investigation into Larry Byrd’s water use on the AB La Grange Ranch was any mention of the orchard on the Rairden property, where a total of seventy-two acres of almond trees are thriving and productive. The AB La Grange Ranch comprises two properties, known as the “Rodoni” and “Rairden” ranches.

A little over thirty acres of those almond trees on the Rairden property are within Modesto Irrigation District (MID) boundaries. Forty-two acres are outside those boundaries.

Very early on in the controversy about allegations that Byrd had been using in-district water on out-of-district trees, multiple sources said that Byrd’s electrical usage records would reveal how much water he pumped onto the orchards on the Rodoni and Rairden properties, where Byrd and his partners planted over five-hundred acres of almonds. After nine months of public inquiry and an investigation that took ten weeks, there are still no answers to how much MID surface water Byrd put onto his out-of-district trees.

Byrd claims he irrigated the out-of-district trees on the Rodoni property with groundwater pumped with a diesel pump. Byrd’s brother and partner, Tim Byrd, has said there was no meter on that diesel pump and therefore no way to measure how much groundwater went onto the out-of-district trees. The 4Creeks investigation concluded the out-of-district trees could not have been irrigated with groundwater from the diesel pump.

Todd Sill, who was ranch manager on the AB La Grange Ranch from 2016 until January of 2023, has said the diesel pump was “seldom” used and that there was a meter on it when he left the ranch. A co-worker is willing to support those claims. Sill also kept detailed records recording water use during his time as ranch manager. He’s willing to provide those records for public review.

One of Todd Sill’s first concerns after reading the 4Creeks report was the omission of any reference to irrigation on the seventy-two acres on the Rairden property.

“The pump for that deep well on the Rairden is an electric pump,” said Sill. “We hardly ever used that pump and the power records should show how little we used it and how much more we used the surface water pump.”

One would think that since the records for power usage on the Rairden would be definitive, both MID management and Byrd himself would be eager to provide them. Before the 4Creeks investigation, Byrd said he “looked forward” to clearing his name and had “nothing to hide.” Why then is he hiding his power usage records?

In response to a public records request for electrical power usage on the Rairden orchard sent last February, MID sent redacted reports. The man with “nothing to hide” chose to hide the truth. The omissions are damning.

Based on general rules-of-thumb, forty-two acres of almonds require a minimum of three acre-feet of water per year for mature trees. That’s roughly one-hundred twenty acre-feet per year. Thirty acres would require at least ninety acre-feet per year. Thus, seventy-two acres would require a little over two-hundred acre-feet per year, and more in years with excessive heat. Power records for the two electric pumps on the Rairden property should therefore reveal how much water was pumped onto the Rairden orchard, both in- and out-of-district.

Both Larry Byrd and MID management have a fiduciary obligation to account for water use throughout the district. Byrd sits on the MID Board of Directors. MID management has failed to provide data accounting for water use on the Rairden property, even though it has Byrd’s power usage records. Byrd’s claims about pumping groundwater from a diesel pump on the Rodoni property have been contradicted both by Todd Sill’s testimony and by the 4Creeks investigation. He and MID have refused to provide records for power use on the Rairden orchard.

The redacted copies of power and billing records for power usage on the Rairden property are full of black marks. Today, there are even more black marks on the reputations of Larry Byrd and MID management.

Steve Ringhoff is a former journalist with the Modesto Bee who went into law and retired after a career as a practicing attorney. 

Nature was part of the allure of Diablo Grande from the beginning, when deer could be seen trimming the hillside oaks while standing on their hind legs.

Much less charming were the wild hogs that rooted for grubs at night in the lush fairways of the two golf courses, leaving parts of the greens looking like they had been plowed.

The occasional Roadrunners at the course edges looked exactly like the cartoons, causing every golfer who saw one for the first time to think, or even say out loud: “beep, beep.”

While the birds added a touch of whimsy to the situation, the prediction of the late Vance Kennedy of Modesto, more than two decades ago, is proving to be true: that water issues would lead to the downfall of the grandiose project.

The resort is in the bankruptcy for at least the third time; this current filing is specifically designed to thwart a tax auction of the golf courses, outbuildings and a handful of developed but vacant lots.

The tax obligation of a couple of million is couch change given a $14 million claim for past due payments for water or the $38 million owed on the Mello-Roos bonds, proceeds of which were used to build the resort.

A couple of extensions on the water bill have pushed that deadline into May but there are big hurdles yet to be overcome.

The dream of the original developers was to turn the dusty foothills a dozen miles west of Patterson into a community of thousands of homes, country clubs — including six golf courses — hotels and a conference center. It was cattle country at the time. This grand resort concept leapt over the usual hurdles — including an environmental impact report — and was approved in the late 90s by the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors.

That plan called for a build-out in six phases. The first two phases would build a clubhouse, outbuildings, and two golf courses along with other infrastructure, including miles of roads to and through the development. There would be clusters of smaller homes and larger, sprawling estates along the roads cut into the hills.

As often happens, environmentalists objected and filed a lawsuit. The late Superior Court Judge David Vanderwall approved the EIR but the Fifth District Court of Appeals did not, finding that the water supply was secured only for first two phases.

Apparently, the shine went off the golf courses as interest in that sport declined, and as people had less disposable income when money tightened. Ultimately, the golf course revenue wasn’t enough to pay for the water needed to keep everything green.

While the perception of many was that there wasn’t enough water, in reality the allotment was for 8,000 acre feet a year and the resort only used about 2,000.

The fairways and greens were kept in good order and had an auspicious start. The Legends course was designed by Jack Nicklaus and Gene Sarazan, whose statue overlooked the practice putting green, clad in the knickers of his heyday.

Most of the course lay on the old Oak Flat Ranch where the dilapidated buildings from the ranch remained, along with a windmill on the third hole.

The resort is contending it does not owe the $14 million to the water purveyor because the deficit came during the tenure of two developers who failed to pay the water bill.

The Western Hills Water District (WHWD) which oversees the resort, also argues that the water allocation is a vested right which it is free to sell, or barter for water from another source.

The water provider disagrees with both contentions. It has also argued that the current individual water bills to homeowners of $600 does not cover the cost of delivering it.

Water from other sources has been hard to find. The federal system for the delta involves more than two dozen entities and each would have to agree to give Diablo Grande an allotment. This is thought to be unlikely.

The City of Patterson provides sewer service and it too is owed money. Without water and sewage systems, the 600 or so homes now housing about 1,000 residents would be uninhabitable.

Mark Kovich, president of WHWD, has been trying to find a way to salvage the resort. He has invited the builders of Tracy Hills and others to build out the resident lots and he has given tours if the golf courses to resort managers’ companies.

It is a chicken-egg situation. You build the homes and maybe you could support the golf courses; with estimates to get them playable again at $1-2 million each. Or you rebuild one or more of the golf courses and thus attract home builders.

The closest city which could annex the development is Patterson. Public agencies in other California counties operate golf courses.

Or, the golf course properties could be turned into parks, sports fields and walking trails where golf carts once roamed.

Or, we could solicit suggestions. What’s yours?

Sources: information for this article came from previously reported pieces; from postings on WHWD’s homepage; from the reported decision of the Fifth District Court of Appeals, and observations of this writer (beep, beep). 

A Special Note: Even Jack Nicklaus got stiffed for part of his fee for designing the Legends course. He was to get his pick of two of the lots but hadn’t made his pick before the first bankruptcy which made that obligation dischargable.

HAVEN — Healthy Alternatives to Violent Environments — is a catalyst for individual empowerment and societal change, advocating for those impacted by domestic violence, sexual assault or human trafficking and working to end gender-based violence.

HAVEN, one of the most respected and venerable nonprofits in Stanislaus County, will again be welcoming the community to its traditional fundraiser – Walk for Survivors: In Their Shoes on Saturday, April 11^th at 9 am, with registration starting at 9:30 – in front of Greens on 10^th Street. Everyone in the area who wants “to celebrate the survivors in their lives,” as Executive Director May Rico said the other day, is warmly encouraged to join in the fun that day – which, of course, also supports the important work that HAVEN does every day.

With roots dating back to 1977, HAVEN has a long history as well as a strong philosophical commitment to adapting to the needs of our community.  It has also always provided a wide array of services that are available to everyone experiencing domestic violence, sexual abuse, or human trafficking, including programs for both adults and children. As always, funding adequate to the great needs in the community for HAVEN’s services is an ongoing challenge for the agency. In a recent interview, May Rico shared her thoughts about this challenge and other issues related to HAVEN’s mission and work, which are so essential for our community and our society.

TP: During the pandemic there was a lot of additional fundings for agencies like HAVEN but that has since disappeared. Please describe some of the challenges that have resulted from that loss of funding, and how the agency has responded.  

May Rico: In the face of shrinking resources – which always means shrinking staff – we are just trying to meet demand and provide services as best we can. But, faced with all those cutbacks, we have had some growth. In our school-based program, we are very pleased that we are serving an increasing number of schools and children through those collaborations. We also saw an increased number of our human trafficking services provided to victims of labor trafficking, which is really important. We’ve been trying to increase visibility that our human trafficking services are not solely sex trafficking but also labor trafficking (such as the exploitation of immigrants; or wage theft).

And this year, with some new partners, we were able to add back some legal advocates so we’re starting to do more around restraining orders than we had for a while.

We also have some additional funds for our housing program, which has been able to grow back a bit, so we’re able now to provide more services than we were over the last couple of years.

With the current federal administration there has been a lot of uncertainty.  For example, there is a three-year grant program that concluded in September, and we still don’t know whether our renewal application for that program will be funded. Something else that has changed are the conditions that have been put on funding, Before some of the very, very strict rules were put around non-discrimination and making sure you were providing services in an inclusive fashion, and trying to reach the most vulnerable in the community that might not be seeing you as a community resource because of an impression they’ve experienced. That was very much supported by federal funders in the past and now it’s the opposite. So, this creates a lot of uncertainty about what the focus for federal funding will be.  

TP: Why do you think our society is so hesitant to listen to the survivors of domestic violence or sexual abuse?

May Rico: Sexual abuse is endemic in our culture. It is a part of who we are as a society and people don’t always like to acknowledge that because you’d like to think this is something that doesn’t happen except by individual perpetrators. But we have a society that repeatedly creates situations where people are sexually abused, and, at the same time, folks are saying that that shouldn’t be a part of who we are. It is horrible when these happen. There’s a reluctance to believe that someone we like could do this horrible thing so instead of believing the victim, we automatically say ‘she’s got to be lying.’  So long as we refuse to acknowledge that sexual abuse is endemic in our culture, so long as we refuse to acknowledge that for very long periods people who are in power and are liked and are respected have also been able to abuse others and get away with it, so long as we aren’t able to acknowledge that that has happened and continues to happen than we are never going to have a safe environment for victims to come forward and tell their stories.

We promise people justice as a culture, as a society. We promise people that if something happens to you that shouldn’t have happened and you come forward, we will put it right as best we can. But most sexual abuse survivors who go through the system will tell you that’s not the case.

TP: How can people change the dynamic related to sexual abuse in this society? What would you ask them to do?

May Rico: What I would ask people to do is this – if they find themselves part of this conversation and if they hear people around them telling them ‘oh, they’ve got to be lying’ or ‘that person could never do that sort of thing’ is to instead of just dismissing it, investigate it. We need to hold our leaders accountable to a deep and fair investigation.  Hold people accountable when we find they’ve done wrong.

TP: You have been with HAVEN for many years. Please describe a shift in the field you’ve noticed over that time.

May Rico: There have been many shifts and improvements in our field over the years that HAVEN has mirrored or tried to mirror. I think the biggest one is acknowledging that survivors of all genders need to be served. Two things can be true at the same time (1) The overwhelming majority of victims of sexual abuse and domestic abuse are women and violence against women is part of a cultural and societal fabric built around who has power but, at the same time, it’s also true that (2) all genders experience violence. If you are transgender nonbinary, you might experience violence at an even higher rate than folks who are cisgendered. Regardless, survivors come in all genders and we should provide services to all victims regardless of their gender, whether they’re male victims or nonbinary or are in same-sex relationships. 

TP: What would you like to say to any survivors who may read this article?

May Rico: Haven is here for you. We don’t ask immigration status. We serve all genders. Services are not dependent on gender or gender expression or immigration status. With the exception for some mandated reporting, we do not share personal information with law enforcement, government agencies, or anyone else. We always want people to feel comfortable and confident in the conversations they have with us and to have control over their own information.

https://www.havenstan.org/

Call the HAVEN office at (209) 524-4331
(Monday-Friday, 8:30 am – 4:30 pm)

Or call HAVEN’s 24-hour crisis line at:
(209) 577-5980
Toll-free 1-888-45HAVEN

Todd Sill recognized the new meter on Larry Byrd’s 200 horsepower diesel pump the first time he saw the photograph. The meter was shown in an image attached to the 4Creeks investigation into Byrd’s irrigation practices on the AB La Grange Ranch, which is just west of the historic community of La Grange, nestled in the southeastern foothills of Stanislaus County.

While the new meter caught Sill’s attention, it was Tim Byrd’s testimony at last year’s December 16^th meeting of the Modesto Irrigation District (MID) that piqued his interest dramatically.

“Tim said there was never any meter on that pump before the new one,” said Sill last Monday. “Then he said it again on at the meeting on February 17th.”

As the man who ran the pump, opened and closed the valves on the irrigation pipes, and kept records of when and why it was operating, Todd Sill knows better.

“There was always a flow meter on that pump when I was on the ranch,” said Sill. “I don’t know where Tim got the idea there was no meter.”

As a Boalt Law graduate and career Gallo attorney, it’s unlikely Tim Byrd has fabricated his claims about the flow meter. Sill says Byrd rarely visited the ranch in any case. It’s most likely that Byrd has relied on claims by Larry Byrd himself that the pump had no meter. Tim and his brother Larry are partners on the AB La Grange Ranch with Ty Angle.

Tim’s (Larry’s?) claims about the meter are belied by Todd Sill’s meticulous journal records, including notes recording when he turned the pump on and off, most always for frost control.

“We hardly ever used that pump for irrigation,” said Sill. “When we did, I had to close valve nine just to get enough power to send water uphill toward that out-of-district orchard, which was a long way away. We did irrigate with the diesel one dry winter when the trees needed just a little moisture. That’s one of the few times we used the diesel on those out-of-district trees.”

While 200 horsepower may seem more than enough to irrigate the 96 acres of out-of-district trees that were the focal point for the 4Creeks investigation, Todd Sill’s longtime friend, known heretofore and proceeding as, “the Tall Cowboy,” explains why it was such a struggle to deliver water to those distant trees.

“A 200 horse diesel pump don’t deliver as much water as a 200 horse electric pump,” said the Tall Cowboy after being asked why the diesel was so inefficient.

“Not only that,” he said, “it costs a lot more to run diesel than electric. If a farmer has to choose based on cost and power only, he’s gonna choose electric.”

“You can tell a lot from the irrigation plans,” said the Tall Cowboy. “If you look at the setup on the AB La Grange, it’s obvious the 250 horse pump was meant to cover all the in- and out-of-district trees. In-district, there’s 367 acres. There’s another 96 or 97 acres out-of-district. When you figure one horse per acre for an electric pump, it’s obvious that electric pump was designed to irrigate all the trees in two sets. If they meant to use the diesel for the out-of-district trees, they must have overbuilt on the electric pump and underbuilt on the diesel. To a farmer, that don’t make any sense, especially when you know how much water had to be pumped uphill by the diesel.”

The irrigation plans are one of many missing elements in the 4Creeks investigation. Investigators say they were permitted to look at the plans via a zoom call, but that no physical or digital copies were provided.

Another curious feature of the investigation is the lack of records of any of the interviews 4Creeks did with former employees, one of whom remembered very well the meter that was on that diesel pump when Todd Sill asked him about it.

“There was a meter on that diesel pump when I left the ranch in 2023,” said Sill, “and a guy I worked with remembers it too. That pump was happiest when it was running at 850 gallons a minute. It would take four or five days to irrigate those out-of-district trees.”

Sill did remember irrigating the out-of-district trees one winter and has notes showing that December irrigation. His claim that it would take four or five days running at higher speeds is supported by common knowledge: a 200 horsepower diesel pump operating at 850 gallons per minute will generally deliver just under four acre-feet of water per day. Higher speeds will produce as much as 2,000 gallons per minute. The out-of-district trees were slightly uphill and relatively distant from the diesel pump. A 200 horsepower diesel pump pulling groundwater from a deep well would have had to work at very high capacity to irrigate 96 uphill acres.

Ordinarily during an investigation of such great consequence as 4Creeks, conflicting testimony would be thoroughly investigated and the differing versions of the truth resolved under oath. The investigation concluded that Larry Byrd could not have watered his out-of-district trees with well water. It should have added that at least two eyewitnesses were and are available to add specific detail about how and when those trees were actually watered.

Todd Sill says he’s ready to produce his journal records as soon as he’s asked to. There’s a co-worker who will corroborate his testimony.

Meanwhile, says Todd Sill, “It sure is convenient that meter disappeared when it did. Mighty convenient.”

When Janice Keating ran for a seat on the Modesto Irrigation District (MID) Board of Directors, she promised to be a budget hawk. Keating argued that her experience as an accountant would bring MID ratepayers a keen eye and sharp pencil to the MID. Since her time on the Board, Keating has been more of a budget buster than hawk.

Her single most notable action was a failed lawsuit against the District and fellow Director Robert Frobose on charges of gender discrimination and harassment. The case had so little  foundation that Keating ended up having to pay a large portion of the attorneys’ fees.

Since then, Keating has seemed to have trouble staying focused on issues critical to MID’s financial security, most especially the Byrd case. Last September, MID launched an investigation into credible allegations that Director Larry Byrd had irrigated out-of-district orchards with in-district water. The investigation by 4Creeks Engineering determined that Byrd could not have irrigated the orchard in question with groundwater, as he had claimed.

Though the only other available water supply was MID surface water, 4Creeks investigators concluded they could not determine whether or not Byrd had used that water on his out-of-district trees, even though his irrigation system features pipes that can deliver MID water directly to the out-of-district trees with a 250 horsepower pump.

Last December, when Keating voted against continuing the investigation, she admitted she found it difficult to understand the 4Creeks report. Instead of asking for clarification or voting to continue the investigation, Keating voted with Byrd to drop the investigation. Byrd himself voted in a clear conflict of interest, which is now being investigated by the FPPC.

Since that December meeting, Keating has missed two subsequent meetings. Last Tuesday, after a motion to continue the investigation, rather than vote, Keating abstained, saying she didn’t want to get into an argument “between two farmers.”

The Byrd issue has nothing to do with an argument between farmers. The impetus for the investigation was a claim by Byrd’s former ranch manager that Byrd had used MID surface water on his out-of-district trees. If proven, the allegation amounts to a case of embezzlement of public resources by an MID Director.

Everyone involved in the Byrd case acknowledges his out-of-district trees are thriving. Former ranch manager Todd Sill’s claim that Byrd “seldom’ used the diesel pump he claimed provided the out-of-district trees with groundwater was confirmed by the 4Creeks investigation. Given that the trees have thrived and that surface water is the only other water source, the only logical inference is that Byrd watered out-of-district trees with in-district water.

The out-of-district trees amount to approximately 100 acres. Ordinarily, mature almond trees require at least three acre-feet of water to reach optimum production. Three acre-feet of water times 100 acres at today’s market prices amount to tens of thousands of dollars for just one-year’s irrigation. The orchards on the AB La Grange Ranch are ten years old.

None of these numbers could possibly be ambiguous to a professional accountant like Janice Keating. Nonetheless, instead of applying her expertise and fulfilling her fiduciary duty to her constituents, Janice Keating ran and hid, thereby depriving the MID Board of Directors the quorum needed to complete the investigation into Director Byrd’s irrigation practices on the AB La Grange Ranch. Two Directors, including Byrd himself, recused.

In failing to address an issue of extreme financial concerns for MID ratepayers, Janice Keating not only broke her campaign promises, she abandoned her duty to monitor and safeguard the district’s most precious resource. Come November, Keating’s abstention will be a major campaign issue, as well as her failed campaign promises four years prior.

The seven declared candidates for the 5th Congressional District, which includes Modesto, will find the varied geography of the newly formed district challenging.

The Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal dismissed Republican challenges to recent gerrymandering, which resulted in new districts, including the sprawling 5^th.

The new 5^th District combines two districts — which were markedly Republican — as a tradeoff so Democratic lawmakers could create other districts which favor Democrats. Each district has to have a population of about 750,000.

The current list of declared Democratic candidates are Michael Masuda (Riverbank), Michael Barkley (Manteca), Kate Sills (Sonora), Angelina Sigala (Modesto)), and Tom Danbom (Turlock).

Republicans include Tom McClintock (El Dorado Hills), and Jason Weland (Santa Maria, Santa Barbara County). McClintock beat Barkley with 61% of the vote in the 2024 District 3 race. Much of the new 5^th was in the old 3^rd.

Kevin Kiley of Rocklin, a Republican Congressman whose current district has been chopped up into parts of six new districts, has expressed interest in the new 5^th. He could pose a serious challenge to McClintock if only because McClintock has so often been an absentee representative. Kiley also has money.

Because the top two vote getters go on to the general election, it is possible that there would be no Democrat in the general election if the Democratic vote is split among the many contenders.

There is little in common among the residents of the new district. Eastern Stanislaus County and those eastern parts of the other counties to the south are agricultural. Those communities along Highway 49 from Jackson to Mariposa share the same mixed economies as other foothill residents, with many dependent on tourism.

Communities on the east side of the Sierra have some focus on recreation. Mammoth, for example, has a permanent resident base of about 7,000 but may see as many as 30,000 day-tripping skiers and snow boarders on any given winter weekend.

The candidates face campaigning in a district which runs from the northern border of Amador County, at the Kit Carson Pass, to Death Valley on the south, an as-the-crow-flies distance of about 175 miles. East to west, it drapes over the Sierras, and is about 100 miles from the Nevada Border to the west side of Modesto.

The new district splits Stanislaus County on a line which runs north and south, roughly along Highway 99, with a carve out for Ceres. Modesto is the most vote-rich area in the district.

One problem for the campaigners is that Highway 88 from Jackson to the Nevada border is the only all-weather highway over the Sierras in the north. In the south, the all-weather crossing goes east from Bakersfield through Mojave.

The geography includes Mt. Whitney — at an elevation of 14,505 feet above sea level — it is the highest peak in the contiguous United States, as well as Death Valley, which at 287 feet below sea level is the lowest point in North America.

At about 760,000, the population of the 5th District is more than the total population of Wyoming. It looks like it will take lots of money for trains, planes and automobiles for 5th District hopefuls who hope to canvass the sprawling district. There is a big disparity in fund raising efforts so far.

As might be expected, McClintock is far ahead of the Democratic candidates. Among those hopefuls, Masuda is way ahead of the other four. As of the end of last year, McClintock had raised $513,180, just short of five times more than the leading Democrat, Michael Masuda, who had raised $109, 679. Katelyn Sills was the next best with $14,060. Michael Barkley raised $700 and Angelina Sigala and Paul Denbom raised $0.0, as recorded by the Federal Election Commission. Weland did not report any donations.

On the other hand, and perhaps of greatest concern to McClintock, the most recent financial reports with the Federal Election Commission, which covers through the end of last year, show that Kiley has over $2 million in the bank.

Masuda has begun holding “town halls”. McClintock has been criticized for holding only virtual “town halls” since 2017. His long absences from the district as well as his support of the current president have resulted in mounting protests around and near his downtown Modesto office.

In what could easily become a classic study in false equivalency and rhetorical sleight-of-hand, Stanislaus County’s Department of Environmental Resources (DER) has released a letter, “to share background information, key considerations, and upcoming actions related to the adoption of the Modesto Subbasin Well Mitigation Plan and the Groundwater User Mitigation Program (GWUMP).”

Dated January 21 of this year, the letter states that both the Subbasin Well Mitigation Plan and the GWUMP,

“are designed to preserve local control, promote collaboration among groundwater users, and support adaptive management based on the best available science and data.”

So far, so good. The state has required California counties to plan for groundwater sustainability or suffer state-imposed restrictions, hence new plans and programs.

The letter then goes on in an attempt to establish an equivalency in uses and responsibilities for “Non-District East (NDE) and Non-District West (NDW) areas.” In this context, “Non-District areas” means groundwater-dependent areas outside Modesto Irrigation District (MID) and Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) boundaries.

The critical thing to keep in mind here is that the “Non-District East (NDE)” is where a dozen or so groundwater-dependent farmers and farm developers have been mining upwards of 90,000 acre-feet of groundwater per year for use on their thirsty almond orchards for well over a decade. Keep in mind also that on the southeast side of Stanislaus County, the biggest consumer of that groundwater is a partner with an MID Director and either a current or former partner with Stanislaus County’s longest-serving supervisor.

One of several of what must be unintentionally ironic passages of the DER letter reads as follows:

“….a central challenge involves the differing conditions and risk profiles between the Non-District East (NDE) and Non-District West (NDW). NDE is almost entirely dependent on groundwater, has a higher likelihood of impacts to shallow domestic wells, and faces….pumping reductions with few viable alternatives. As a result, proposed management actions are often viewed within NDE as posing significant risks to agricultural viability and long-term land use.”

For anyone unfamiliar with the history of farming on Stanislaus County’s east side, the irony here lies in knowing that farmers who planted groundwater-dependent almond orchards on what was then grazing land knew with absolute certainty they were going to run out of water. In some cases, they knew they wouldn’t have enough water to last even the twenty- to twenty-five year life of one almond orchard.

They planted anyway. Or, in the words of MID Board President Robert Frobose,

“They chose profit over responsible farming practices and obligations to the environment and public interest.”

A decade ago, the almond boom was providing some farmers with as much as $5,000 an acre, sometimes more. The temptation to get ten to twenty good years from 100 or more acres was overwhelming, and Stanislaus County’s grazing land was selling for ten-percent or less than the cost of land within OID or MID. Moreover, the east side aquifer was one of the last viable aquifers in the entire San Joaquin Valley.

So they planted. They planted knowing, as the DER letter says, again with a high degree of irony, “management actions” posed “significant risks to agricultural viability and long-term land use.” Actually, the most significant risk to “agricultural viability” was the limited sustainability of the aquifer itself. Those almond farmers knew they would deplete the aquifer; they decided the money was worth the damage.

And speaking of “management actions,” where was the Stanislaus County DER when east side water miners were drilling all those wells?

Another ironic passage in the DER answers that question as follows:

“Unincorporated areas within the Stanislaus County portion of the Modesto Subbasin that are not located within an irrigation district fall under the jurisdiction of Stanislaus County, which serves as the Management Area Steward.”

What kind of “Management Area Steward” enables unsustainable planting of thousands of acres of almonds and then feigns surprise when, “proposed management actions” pose “significant risks to agricultural viability and long-term land use”?

Stanislaus County authorities knew the east side aquifer would be depleted after those thousands of acres of almonds were planted. The “Management Area Steward” looked the other way until new state regulations forced it to account for the unsustainable groundwater use by eastside water miners.

Now, in a classically egregious case of prejudicial false equivalency, that “Management Area Steward” has decided that “a persistent perception within NDE that compliance burdens are unevenly distributed” is worth adjudicating.

What has actually happened is that water miners on the NDE have decided that because the NDW “benefits from greater surface water influence and operational flexibility” it should bear the same responsibility for achieving sustainability as the NDE water miners.

That’s right dear reader, according to the Stanislaus County Department of Environmental Resources, the “differing circumstances” between surface water availability on the NDW and NDE have resulted in “a persistent perception that compliance burdens are unevenly distributed.”

Of course the compliance burdens are “unevenly distributed.” The aquifer under the NDW is in balance. It’s in balance because (a) extensive applications of in-district surface water have meant the use of groundwater is limited and sustainable and (b) those NDW farmers with out-of-district crops almost always have riparian rights and (c) NDW farmers were ethical enough to choose long-term sustainability and responsible farming practices over short-term profits and environmental destruction.

In yet another instance of rhetorical sleight of hand, the DER letter suddenly substitutes “groundwater-dependent communities” for NDE farmers when it states, “these tensions reflect the challenges faced by groundwater-dependent communities working to achieve SGMA (Sustainable Groundwater Management Act) compliance without the buffering options available elsewhere in the basin.”

The trick here, known among aficionados of verbal subterfuge as, “The Flourish,” enables responsibility for destruction of the aquifer to migrate from the culprits to the community. It’s the kind of swindle that always comes with a smile and a handshake. It’s only when you reach for your wallet that you realize your pocket got picked.

Just for clarification, “groundwater-dependent communities” in Stanislaus County include virtually every city, town and neighborhood in the county. They include the cities of Oakdale, Waterford, and Riverbank. They include the Del Rio Country Club and any number of other Stanislaus County neighborhoods, none of which lie over depleted aquifers. In short, because the aquifers beneath these cities, towns and housing clusters are stable and sustainable, they are already SGMA compliant.

The costs for the studies, agencies, and ongoing management issues, not to mention the costs for damage to the environment from depleted aquifers, should not be borne by farmers, urban ratepayers and residents who have followed the rules and bear no responsibility for unsustainable farming practices on Stanislaus County’s east side. The costs for mitigation, studies, research and management should be borne by those who knowingly brought about the depletion of the aquifer.

Stanislaus County Supervisors are self-designated “Management Area Stewards” for land use throughout the county. Let’s hope when time comes to assign responsibility for the damages and costs of mining groundwater on Stanislaus County’s east side they avoid prejudicial false equivalencies and verbal subterfuge.

Responsible farmers, urban residents and other members of “groundwater-dependent communities” should not be forced to bear the costs and burdens of the consequences resulting from calculated depletion of Stanislaus County’s east side aquifer, nor should they be subject to arbitrary adjudication by Management Area Stewards whose failure to prohibit irresponsible farming has resulted in a severely depleted aquifer.

Like the east side water miners, Stanislaus County authorities are trying to assert authority while ducking responsibility. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.

Public outrage about mining groundwater on Stanislaus County’s east side peaked a little over a decade ago. Directed first at local farmers and farm developers, it soon focused on Trinitas Partners, a Bay Area investment group that surreptitiously bought thousands of groundwater–dependent acres of east side grazing land before converting it to almond orchards.

As Trinitas became the focal point for the environmental destruction brought about by draining the east side aquifer, local farmers engaged in the same practices benefitted from the lack of attention to their own depredations. One of those local farmers — more accurately described as a “farm developer” — was Tyler “Ty” Angle, whose purchase or leases of thousands of acres of east side cattle land featured many of the multiple LLC ownership smokescreens as Trinitas Partners.

As early as 2015, Angle was partners with Stanislaus County Supervisor Terry Withrow in a farming operation in Westlands Water District. Around that same time, Angle took in Modesto Irrigation District (MID) Board Member Larry Byrd as a partner on the AB La Grange Ranch, just west of La Grange in southeastern Stanislaus County. Byrd’s brother Tim, a career Gallo attorney, also became a partner in that same operation.

Larry Byrd has admitted he put no money into the “partnership” with Angle. Given recent exposure of Byrd’s lies about his irrigation practices on the AB La Grange Ranch, it would be interesting to know whether his brother’s or Withrow’s partnerships were also “no money down” propositions.

Falling almond prices and depleted Valley aquifers have resulted in thousands of acres of uprooted trees and billions of dollars’ worth of environmental destruction. As always, taxpaying citizens will be stuck with the bill.

Prior to the establishment of the almond monoculture, the rolling cattle land in eastern Stanislaus County was one of the best habitats for wintering raptors in the American west. The creeks, ponds and vernal pools served a vast array of native wildlife and plants even while the grazing cattle provided sustainable incomes for generations of family farmers and ranchers. The east side aquifer was stable.

Many of the speculators who gambled that draining Valley aquifers would be a small price to pay for the millions of dollars to be gained during the almond boom profited handsomely. In what was very likely a planned strategy, Trinitas Partners recently declared bankruptcy; creditors and local citizens were stuck with the costs while Trinitas walked away. Meanwhile, Valley citizens are left with drained aquifers, widespread subsidence and severe compaction.

As for the eastside almond orchards, Director Byrd’s ongoing attempts to gift their owners and lease holders with basement-rate surface water from MID appear to have failed. Last Tuesday, MID Board Members unanimously approved a rate of $200 an acre-foot for the district’s Groundwater Replenishment Program (GRP). Byrd had argued for a price of $60 an acre-foot, all the while denying he had any conflicts of interest due to his partnership with Angle.

After Byrd recused himself from voting, Board Member John Boer pointed out that nearby farmers west of the San Joaquin River were paying $350 an acre-foot. Given that fact, east side farmers should be grateful; they’ve been offered a more than fair price. So far, all they’ve done is demand ratepayers subsidize their business ventures while they continue draining the last viable aquifer in the San Joaquin Valley.

After over a decade of wanton plunder, the message from Stanislaus County’s east side water miners has been simple: Subsidize our business ventures or we destroy the aquifer.

Fortunately for MID ratepayers and in-district farmers, MID Board Members seem committed to fair rates and serious reform of the practices that have enabled speculative farming operations to hedge their bets and losses with public money. Let’s hope they hold firm against Director Byrd’s attempts to gift his partner with public resources at bargain-basement prices.